The present invention relates to an apparatus and method of coating a foodstuff with a particulate material.
In the preparation of frozen coated food products such as fish, meat or vegetables suitable for oven-cooking, the foodstuff is usually coated with batter, breaded, prefried, deep-frozen and then packaged. The breading material is normally a particulate material such as bread crumbs or shredded cheese, or it may be a particulate material derived from dehydrated potato, for example, potato flakes, potato powder or potato granules. The average size of the particles is generally from 0.1 to 2.0 mm diameter and the maximum volume of a particle is not usually more than about 10 cubic millimetres. The amount of breading material used in conventional procedures is normally not more than 20% by weight based on the total weight of the product.
Normally, large amounts of coating material fall off the foodstuff during the coating process and it is important that this excess coating material is reused. In conventional equipment this is normally done by elevator screws which transport the excess coating material upwards for reuse. This means that large amounts of coating material are always in circulation and exposed to the warm air of the environment which is not desirable since it is important that the coating material should be maintained at as low a temperature as possible.
From an organoleptic point of view it would be very desirable to use fresh potato particles as the coating material but up to the present time this has not been done successfully on a commercial scale. Owing to the higher water content of fresh potato when compared with dehydrated potato, the particle size has to be larger and it is not possible to obtain a satisfactory, even distribution of the particulate fresh potato material using conventional methods because in conventional equipment, the elevator screws cannot recirculate the excess particles of larger size evenly or without damaging them.